Picture this: You're sitting in a conference room with ten people from a major healthcare equipment manufacturer. Legal, marketing, engineering - the works. You've just delivered your pitch for an analytics solution that could replace Google Analytics. The room is impressed. Then you drop the price: €9 per month. The air gets sucked out of the room. One developer actually logs off the call in disbelief.
"If you'd just said €500 a month, we would have signed right there," the client later admitted.
Welcome to the world of Iran Brands, co-founder of Simple Analytics, where conventional B2B marketing wisdom gets turned on its head daily. His company is proving that you don't need venture capital or a massive marketing budget to build a successful B2B software company - you just need to be really, really good at spotting opportunities others miss.
[EXECUTIVE SUMMARY]
In a world obsessed with growth at all costs, Simple Analytics is charting a different course. The privacy-focused analytics company has built a sustainable business approaching €400K in annual recurring revenue with just two full-time employees. No VC funding. No paid ads. Not even cold emails.
Their secret? A laser focus on building trust through radical transparency, combined with an uncanny ability to turn limitations into advantages. When you can't outspend your competitors, you have to outthink them.
The company's approach offers a masterclass in bootstrap marketing for B2B companies, proving that authentic connections and strategic patience can trump big budgets and aggressive growth tactics.
Why It Matters: As tech companies face a reckoning over privacy concerns and marketing budgets tighten across industries, Simple Analytics' playbook for building sustainable growth without massive capital investment couldn't be more timely.
The Privacy Paradox: When Your Biggest Constraint Becomes Your Greatest Asset
"We don't do ads," Brands tells me, grinning over our video call. "It might seem limiting, but think about it - we're a privacy-focused analytics company. How weird would it be if we were tracking people across the internet to sell them a product that's all about not tracking people?"
This kind of principled stance could be marketing suicide. Instead, it's forced Simple Analytics to get creative in ways that have ultimately strengthened their brand.
The War Room: How to Hack Growth When You're David Fighting Goliath
Remember that scene in The Social Network where Mark Zuckerberg says "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook"? Simple Analytics has their own version of this story, but with a twist.
When Brands joined the company, they knew they needed to grow but couldn't use traditional marketing channels. So they built what they jokingly call their "war room" - a simple alert system that monitors for any news about Google Analytics and privacy concerns.
When Austria's data protection agency suggested banning Google Analytics, most companies would have waited for TechCrunch to cover it. Simple Analytics had a detailed analysis up within hours, hitting the front page of Hacker News before mainstream tech media even noticed the story.
The Nine-Euro Lesson: Why Cheap Prices Can Be Expensive Mistakes
That awkward sales call with the healthcare company? It taught Brands a valuable lesson about B2B pricing psychology. "We were so focused on being accessible that we forgot about signaling value," he admits. "Now if anyone wants a sales call, pricing starts at €500. Sometimes being too affordable can actually hurt your credibility."
Building in Public: When Transparency Becomes Your Best Marketing Strategy
In an industry where companies guard their metrics like state secrets, Simple Analytics does something radical: they share everything. Revenue numbers, customer counts, even profit margins.
"We want to show other people you can build a company you can live off without funding," Brands explains. "Everyone talks about their funding rounds and their growth numbers, but nobody talks about real business metrics. We want to change that conversation."
The Developer Trojan Horse: Why Your Best Customers Might Not Be Your Biggest Spenders
Here's where it gets interesting. Simple Analytics recently discovered something counterintuitive about their business: while most of their revenue comes from companies, their most vocal advocates are individual developers.
This insight led to a bold move: they're launching a free plan, but not for the reasons you might think. They've realized that developers using their tool for side projects often become internal champions at their day jobs, leading to enterprise deals.
From Hacker News to the Enterprise: Building a B2B Brand One Developer at a Time
The company's growth strategy reads like a masterclass in community-driven marketing. Instead of trying to reach enterprise decision-makers directly, they've focused on building credibility with developers first.
"Developers with side projects might only pay €9 a month," Brands notes, "but when their company needs an analytics solution, guess who they recommend?"
The Future: Why Bootstrap Marketing Might Be B2B's Next Big Thing
As Simple Analytics approaches their goal of €1M in annual recurring revenue, they're proving that bootstrap marketing isn't just about making do with less - it's about building differently.
"Sometimes you need to risk it for a chocolate biscuit," Brands quotes, referencing the recent feat of the 'Hardest Geyser' who ran the length of Africa. It's an apt metaphor for bootstrap marketing: sometimes the crazy-seeming path turns out to be the most sensible one after all.
